As told by Leah Chase
Words by Bill Spratling
Photos by Austin Richardson
Leah Chase is a culinary legend in New Orleans. For over 75 years she has run Dooky Chase’s restaurant on Orleans Avenue. The restaurant is not just an institution serving some of the best gumbo and fried chicken in New Orleans, but was also a major meeting place for Civil Rights activists and intellectuals during the 1960’s. Chase, now 93, was honored with a Lifetime Achievement Award from the James Beard Foundation in 2016.
If you go down to the bar there is a photograph of this old Buffalo Soldier. I fed him years ago. He was 113, would you believe that? He was an original Buffalo Soldier. They had to have a special chair for him, he traveled with a special chair to sit on. But his mouth was something else. I said, “Look old man, don’t be smart mouthing me.” He would say, “Come on sister, ya know, do this do that,” all but bossing me around in my own restaurant.
I had a Buffalo Soldier painting by Ernie Barnes. He was an NBA or NFL player, I think. He painted Buffalo Soldiers, and we loved his painting. It was of Buffalo Soldiers riding hard. So I asked, “Why were they called Buffalo Soldiers?” The old soldier told me, it was the Indians that named them. The Indians called them the Buffalo Soldiers because of their hair. If you’ve ever seen a buffalo, they have curly tight hair. So because of their hair the Indians called them the Buffalo Soldiers. And they rode hard and became a cavalry unit in the army.
They had a woman in there. I learned this from all these men who were Buffalo Soldiers. Her name was Cathay “Faye” Williams. And she would cook for them. You see, this was before the army had their own cooks. I don’t know what she cooked, but it was probably corn and vegetables, and maybe buffalo meat or something that the Indians had or that they killed.
So when the army took all of it over and formed the cavalry unit, or whatever they formed with these black soldiers, that left Faye out. But things were not like they are today. They didn’t put you through all the physical tests and all that when you joined the Army. So Faye Williams joined up with the Buffalo Soldiers. Nobody outside of the Buffalo Soldiers knew she was a woman until she died. That’s the way the tales goes, so they told me. So I said, “Okay, I’ll be Faye Williams.”
I always thought Faye Williams cooked a lot of game. I used to do a big game dinner myself. I haven’t done one since since Dutch Morial died. The men would bring me everything they killed—venison, squirrel, everything—and I would cook it. Then we would have this big dinner.
The last big dinner was 600 men; we invited no women, and I was the only woman. Like Faye.
So here I am, the only woman with these 600 men, cooking for them. Dutch was a class act. You couldn’t go half-stepping with him. We had to put out wine glasses, water glasses, everything. I cooked the equivalent of five whole dear that year, and how I did it I could not tell you. I had very little help—no help at all, really. They would bring me squirrel. One year they brought me some squirrel and dove, and I made what I called a critter gumbo. We put the squirrel, dove, and venison sausage in to make a gumbo.
I tell all African American people, or black people, whatever you want to call us…That’s another thing. We had so many monikers. First we were colored. I didn’t like that because I said colored? That could mean blue, pink, green, any color. I would rather be a Negro. But nobody wanted to be a negro because they said that’s the name the white man gave you. Okay. So then they said we want to be black. Okay, I’ll be black. Now they say they want to be African Americans. I said, “I’m stopping right there at black.” I’m black and that’s it.
Because you know it’s not what you’re called, it’s how you act to make a difference in the world you live in. And it’s not easy. I can’t go back to what your grandfather did. It’s a total waste of time. He did what he thought was right at the time or if it wasn’t right he did the thing to do at that time. We have to move above that and say, “this was not right, we gotta correct this, we got to take a different road.” And that’s the road beyond today.
Your mother raises you. You’re going to remember what she taught you. And if she pounded in your head all of your life that black people were inferior, you’re going to believe that. If your mother told you that, now you’ve got to look at life a different way if you’re going to change. That is not easy, darling. It’s not easy.
We all have to try to understand one another and keep going. That’s all I try to do. So I try to be Faye Williams.
Not too long ago, when I had my 90th birthday, they made me an honorary Buffalo Soldier. I’m an honorary buffalo solider, so sometimes I act like ‘em too.
Sometimes I’m a rough rider. And sometimes I try to be nice.
You know my mother gave us these rules, you see them on the post out there in the neutral ground. To be a good woman we have to look like a girl, act like a lady, think like a man, and work like a dog.
So I can look like a girl. I never did learn to act like a lady, but I’m still trying. I can think like a man, and I know I can work. You know, you go back and think, “I don’t know where my mother got this from.” No idea where she got this from—but we all had it on a plaque. She had nine girls before she had a boy. She raised all nine of us before the boys. The girls came up just doing what they had to do. No, they didn’t tell us “because you are a girl you can’t do this, you can’t do that.” No, they didn’t tell us that. Like Faye.
Living is fun. When you go back and remember all those things and all the people that paved the way for you, it ought to make you work hard. Because I don’t care if you are white, black, blue, yellow—you had a rough ride to make this world what it is today.
So, we all have to pitch in today and make it work. For me, it’s the best thing in the world to see some of MLK’s words come true. And what does he wants us to do? Work together. That’s what he wanted to see and he died for that. So, I’ll be working. We can all work together. We can think differently, but we got to work together! Like Faye.
So, I’ll be Faye Williams till I die.
